AMD's Linux driver package catalyst was previously named fglrx (FireGL and Radeon X). Only the package name has changed, while the kernel module retains its original fglrx.ko filename. Therefore, any mention of fglrx below is specifically in reference to the kernel module, not the package.

As of April 26, 2013, Catalyst packages are no longer offered in the official repositories. In the past, Catalyst has been dropped from official Arch support because of dissatisfaction with the quality and speed of development. This time, it's the incompatibility with Xorg 1.14.

Compared to the open source driver, Catalyst performs worse in 2D graphics, but has a better support for 3D rendering and power management. Supported devices are ATI/AMD Radeon video cards with chipset R600 and newer (Radeon HD 2xxx and newer). See the Xorg decoder ring or this table, to translate model names (X1900, HD4850) to/from chip names (R580, RV770 respectively).

Installation

There are three ways of installing Catalyst on your system. One way is to use Vi0L0's (Arch's unofficial Catalyst maintainer) repository. This repository contains all the necessary packages. The second method you can use is the AUR; PKGBUILDs offered here are also made by Vi0L0 and are the same he uses to built packages for his repository. Lastly, you can install the driver directly from AMD.

Before choosing the method you prefer, you will have to see which driver you need. Since Catalyst 12.4, AMD has separated its development for Radeon HD 2xxx, 3xxx and 4xxx cards into the legacy Catalyst driver. For Radeon HD 5xxx and newer, there is the regular Catalyst driver. Regardless of the driver you need, you will also need the Catalyst utilities.

Note: After the instructions for every method of installing, you will find general instructions everyone has to perform, regardless of the method you used.

Installing the driver

Installing from the unofficial repository

If you don't fancy building the packages from the AUR, this is the way to go. The repository is maintained by our unofficial Catalyst maintainer, Vi0L0. All packages are signed and are considered safe to use. As you will see later on in this article, Vi0L0 is also responsible for many other packages that will help you get your system working with your ATI graphic cards.

Vi0L0 has three different Catalyst repositories, each having different drivers:

[catalyst]; for the regular Catalyst driver needed by Radeon HD 5xxx and up, it contains the latest (stable or beta) Catalyst release;

[catalyst-stable]; for the regular Catalyst driver needed by Radeon HD 5xxx and up, with the latest stable driver;

Warning: The Legacy driver does not support Xorg 1.14 for now. Support should be added by AMD in a century or two, but this could be sooner. Should you want to use this driver, see #Xorg repositories for instructions on how to roll back to or hold back Xorg 1.13.

To enable one of these, you will have to edit /etc/pacman.conf and add the repository of choice's information above all other repositories in /etc/pacman.conf.

Once you have done this, update pacman's database and install the packages:

# pacman -Syu
# pacman -S catalyst catalyst-utils

Note: If pacman asks you about removing libgl you can safely do so.

Warning: Catalyst from Vi0L0's repository is compiled against one kernel and one kernel only. For Vi0L0, it's getting more and more difficult to keep up with kernel's pace and as such, we have seen a lot of users asking for what to do in the forums. Often, the solution is to a) wait for Vi0L0 to rebuilt the Catalyst package against those newer versions, b) do so yourself or c) hold back the Linux kernel update. The easiest solution is to do so yourself, not manually, but by using Vi0L0's excellent #Catalyst-hook.

If you are on 64-bit and also need 32-bit OpenGL support:

# pacman -S lib32-catalyst-utils

Repositories also contain other packages, that can replace the catalyst-hook package:

catalyst-generator; this package is able to generate fglrx modules packed into pacman compliant packages - most secure and KISS-compatible package in this side-note, although it has to be operated manually. It's described in #Catalyst-generator

catalyst-hook; a systemd service which will automatically update the fglrx module whilst the system shuts down or reboots. It's described in #Catalyst-hook

Installing from the AUR

The second way to install Catalyst is from the AUR. If you want to built the packages specifically for your computer, this is your way to go. Note that this is also the most tedious way to install Catalyst; it requires the most work and also requires manual updates upon every kernel update.

Warning: If you install the Catalyst package from the AUR, you will have to rebuild Catalyst every time the kernel is updated. Otherwise X will fail to start.

All packages mentioned above in Vi0L0's unofficial repository are also available on the AUR:

The catalyst-total packages are made to make the lives of AUR users easier. It builds the driver, the kernel utilities and the 32 bit kernel utilities. It also builds the catalyst-hook package, which is explained above.

Installing directly from AMD

Warning: Using the installer from ati.com/amd.com is not recommended! It may cause file conflicts and X failures and you will miss Arch-specific fixes. You must be familiar with booting to the command-line if you wish to attempt this.

Note: If you have attempted a manual install from the official installer and cannot recover your desktop:

# /usr/share/ati/fglrx-uninstall.sh

1.) Download the installer from AMD or elsewhere (whereas *-* will be the version): ati-driver-installer-*-*-x86.x86_64.run

6.) Now run # ./ati-driver-installer-*-*-x86.86_64.run (Files will extract to a temporary folder and scripts will run...)

Assuming nothing went horribly wrong...

7.) Check /usr/share/ati/fglrx-install.log for issues. There should also be a /lib/modules/fglrx/make.{ker_version}.log.

Note: If you modify the make scripts, save to a different filename. Otherwise uninstall will not complete successfully.

Configuring the driver

After you have installed the driver via your chosen method, you will have to configure X to work with Catalyst. Also, you will have to make sure the module gets loaded at boot. Also, one should disable kernel mode setting.

Configuring X

To configure X, you will have to create an xorg.conf file. Catalyst provides its own aticonfig tool to create and/or modify this file.
It also can configure virtually every aspect of the card for it also accesses the /etc/ati/amdpcsdb file. For a complete list of aticonfig options, run:

# aticonfig --help | less

Warning: Use the --output option before committing to /etc/X11 as an xorg.conf file will override anything in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

Note: If you want to adhere to the new xorg.conf.d: Append your aticonfig string with --output so that you can adapt the Device section to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf. The drawback of this is that many aticonfig options rely on an xorg.conf, and thus will be unavailable.

Now, to configure Catalyst. If you have only one monitor, run this:

# aticonfig --initial

Note: If you have PowerXpress problem you should probably install catalyst-utils-pxp

However, if you have two monitors and want to use both of them, you can run the command stated below. Note that this will generate a dual head configuration with the second screen located above the first screen.

Note: With every Catalyst update you should remove amdpcsdb file in this way: kill X, remove /etc/ati/amdpcsdb, start X and then run amdcccle - otherwise the version of Catalyst may display wrongly in amdcccle.

Loading the module at boot

Note: Users of the [community] package do not have to do this, it's automatically done for them when installing the package.

We have to blacklist the radeon module to prevent it from auto-loading. To do so, blacklist radeon in /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf. Also, make sure that it is not loaded by any file under /etc/modules-load.d/. For more information, see blacklisting in this article.

Then we will have to make sure that the fglrx module gets auto-loaded. Either add fglrx on a new line of an existing module file located under /etc/modules-load.d/, or create a new file and add fglrx.

Disable kernel mode setting

Disabling kernel mode setting is important, as the driver doesn't take advantage of KMS yet. If you do not deactivate KMS, your system might freeze when trying to switch to a tty or even when shutting down via your DE.

For GRUB, edit /etc/default/grub and add nomodeset to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="nomodeset"

Then run, as root:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

For Syslinux, edit /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg and add nomodeset to the APPEND line, e.g.:

APPEND root=/dev/sda2 ro nomodeset

Checking operation

Assuming that a reboot to your login was successful, you can check if fglrx is running properly with the following commands:

$ lsmod | grep fglrx
$ fglrxinfo

If you get output, it works. Finally, run X with startx or by using GDM/KDM and verify that direct rendering is enabled by running the following command in a terminal:

$ glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"

If it says "direct rendering: yes" then you're good to go! If the glxinfo command is not found install the mesa-demos package.

Note: You can also use:

$ fgl_glxgears

as the fglrx alternative test to glxgears.

Warning: In recent versions of Xorg, the paths of libs are changed. So, sometimes libGL.so cannot be correctly loaded even if it's installed. Check this if your GL is not working. Please read "Troubleshooting" section for details.

To perform a switch into Intel's IGP you will also have to install the mesa-libgl package and Intel's drivers: xf86-video-intel and intel-dri.

Note: With the latest version of Catalyst, version 13.1 (not Catalyst legacy) ChrisXY was able to work on the newest xorg-server (version 1.13.1), mesa 9.0.1 and xf86-video-intel 2.20.18.

On any version of Catalyst below 13.1 (and all versions of Catalyst legacy) there are some problems with the new Intel drivers and the last noted working version of xf86-video-intel is 2.20.2-2, so you will probably have to downgrade from the latest version that you have gotten from Arch's repositories (although we recommend to test the newest one before downgrading - there's always some possibility that it will work).

xf86-video-intel 2.20.2-2 works only with xorg-server 1.12 and so it is a part of the xorg112 repository. If you want to use it you will have to downgrade xorg-server as well. For information on this, see #Xorg repositories.

Now you can switch between the integrated and the discrete GPU, using these commands:

Just remember that fglrx needs /etc/X11/xorg.conf configured for AMD's card with 'fglrx' inside.

You can also use the pxp_switch_catalyst switching script that will perform some additional usefull operations:

Switching xorg.conf - it will rename xorg.conf into xorg.conf.cat (if there's fglrx inside) or xorg.conf.oth (if there's intel inside) and then it will create a symlink to xorg.conf, depending on what you chose.

Running aticonfig --px-Xgpu.

Running switchlibGL.

Adding/removing fglrx into/from /etc/modules-load.d/catalyst.conf.

Usage:

# pxp_switch_catalyst amd
# pxp_switch_catalyst intel

If you have got problems when you try to run X on Intel's driver you may try to force "UXA" acceleration; just make sure that your xorg.conf for Intel's GPU got Option "AccelMethod" "uxa", like here:

Running two X servers (one using the Intel driver, another one using fglrx) simultaneously

Because fglrx is crash-prone (regarding PowerXpress), it could be a good idea to use the Intel driver in the main X server and have a secondary X server using fglrx when 3D acceleration is needed. However, simply switching to the discrete GPU from the integrated GPU using aticonfig or amdcccle will cause all sorts of weird bugs when starting the second X.

To run two X servers at the same time (each using different drivers), you should firstly set up a fully working X with Catalyst and then move its xorg.conf to a temporary place (for example, /etc/X11/xorg.conf.fglrx. The next time X is started, it will use the Intel driver by default instead of fglrx.

To start a second X server using fglrx, simply move xorg.conf back to the proper place (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) before starting X. This method even allows you to switch between running X sessions. When you are done using fglrx, move xorg.conf somewhere else again.

The only disadvantage of this method is not having 3D acceleration using the Intel driver. 2D acceleration, however, is fully functional. Other than that, this will provide us with a completely stable desktop.

Xorg repositories

Catalyst is notorious for its slow update process. As such, it is common that a new Xorg version is pushed down from upstream that will break compatibility for Catalyst. This means that Catalyst users either have to hold the Xorg packages from updating, or use a backported repository that only contains the Xorg packages that should be hold back. Vi0L0 has stepped in to fulfil this task and provides several backported repositories.

If you want to use the backported repositories, you have to edit /etc/pacman.conf and add the information of the repository above all other repositories, even above your Catalyst repository, should you use one.

[xorg113]

Catalyst doesn't support xorg-server 1.14.

[xorg113]
Server = http://catalyst.wirephire.com/repo/xorg113/$arch

[xorg112]

Catalyst < 12.10 doesn't support xorg-server 1.13.

[xorg112]
Server = http://catalyst.wirephire.com/repo/xorg112/$arch

[xorg111]

Catalyst < 12.6 doesn't support xorg-server 1.12.

[xorg111]
Server = http://catalyst.wirephire.com/repo/xorg111/$arch

Tools

Catalyst-hook

Catalyst-hook is a systemd service that will automatically rebuild the fglrx modules while the system shuts down or reboots, but only if it's necessary (e.g. after an update).

Before using this package make sure that both the base-devel group and the linux-headers package (the one specific to the kernel you use) are installed:

# pacman -S base-devel linux-headers

To enable the automatic update, enable the catalyst-hook.service:

# systemctl enable catalyst-hook
# systemctl start catalyst-hook

You can also use this package to build the fglrx module manually. Simply run the catalyst_build_module script after the kernel has been updated:

# catalyst_build_module all

A few more technical details:

The catalyst-hook.service is stopping the systemd "river" and is forcing systemd to wait until catalyst-hook finishes its job.

The catalyst-hook.service is calling the catalyst_build_module check function which checks if fglrx rebuilds are really necessary.

The check function is checking if the fglrx module exists, if it:

doesn't exist, it will build it;

does exist, it will compare the two values to be sure that a rebuild is necessary.

These values are md5sums of the /usr/lib/modules/<kernel_version>/build/Module.symvers file (because I, Vi0L0, noticed that this file is unique and different for every kernel's release). The first value is the md5sum of the existing Module.symvers file. The second value is the md5sum of the Module.symvers file which existed in a moment of the fglrx module creation. This value was compiled into the fglrx module by a catalyst_build_module script.

If the values are different, it will compile the new fglrx module.

The check is checking the whole /usr/lib/modules/ directory and building modules for all of the installed kernels if it's necessary. If the build or rebuild isn't necessary, the whole process takes only some milliseconds to complete before it gets killed by systemd.

Catalyst-generator

Catalyst-generator is a package that is able to build and install the fglrx module packed into pacman compliant catalyst-${kernver} packages. The basic difference from Catalyst-hook is that you will have to trigger this command manually, whereas Catalyst-hook will do this automatically at boot when a new kernel got installed.

It creates catalyst-${kernver} packages using makepkg and installs them with pacman. ${kernver} is the kernel version for which each package was built (e.g. catalyst-2.6.35-ARCH package was built for 2.6.35-ARCH kernel).

To build and install catalyst-${kernver} package for a currently booted kernel as an unprivileged user (non-root; safer way), use catalyst_build_module. You will be asked for your root password to proceed to package installation.

A short summary on how to use this package:

As root: catalyst_build_module remove. This will remove all unused catalyst-{kernver} packages.

As unprivileged user: catalyst_build_module ${kernver}, where ${kernver} is the version of the kernel to which you just updated. For example: catalyst_build_module 2.6.36-ARCH. You can also build catalyst-${kernver} for all installed kernels by using catalyst_build_module all.

If you want to remove catalyst-generator, it's best to run this as root before removing catalyst-generator: catalyst_build_module remove_all. This will remove all catalyst-{kernver} packages from the system.

Catalyst-generator isn't able to remove all those catalyst-{kernver} packages automatically while being removed because there can not be more than one instance of pacman running. If you forget to run catalyst_build_module remove_all before using pacman -R catalyst-generator catalyst-generator will tell you which catalyst-{kernver} packages you will have to remove manually after removing catalyst-generator itself.

amdapp-aparapi

AMD's Aparapi is an API for expressing data parallel workloads in Java and a runtime component capable of converting the Java bytecode of compatible workloads into OpenCL so that it can be executed on a variety of GPU devices. If Aparapi can’t execute on the GPU, it will execute in a Java thread pool.

amdapp-sdk (formerly known as amdstream)

The AMD APP Software Development Kit (SDK) is a complete development platform created by AMD to allow you to quickly and easily develop applications accelerated by AMD APP technology. The SDK provides samples, documentation and other materials to quickly get you started leveraging accelerated compute using OpenCL, Bolt, or C++ AMP in your C/C++ application.

Since version 2.8 amdapp-sdk is providing aparapiUtil as well as aparapi's samples. A package is available on the [catalyst] repository; it depends on the amdapp-aparapi package. The AUR's package will let you decide whether you want aparapi's additions or not.

Version 2.8 does not provide Profiler functionality, it has been moved to CodeXL.

XvBA support and xvba-video is still under development, however it is working very well in most cases. Build the xvba-videoAUR package from AUR or soon, install it from [community] and install mplayer-vaapi and libva. Then just set your video player to use vaapi:gl as video output:

$ mplayer -vo vaapi:gl movie.avi

These options can be added to your mplayer configuration file, see MPlayer.

Note: If you are using Compiz/KWin, the only way to avoid video flickering is to watch videos in full-screen and only when Unredirect Fullscreen is off.
In compiz you need to set Redirected Direct Rendering in General Options of ccsm. If it is still flickering, try to disable this option in CCSM. It's off by default in KWin, but if you see flickering try to turn "Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows" on or off in System Settings → Desktop Effects → Advanced.

GPU/Mem frequency, Temperature, Fan speed, Overclocking utilities

You can get the GPU/Mem clocks with: $ aticonfig --od-getclocks.

You can get the fan speed with: $ aticonfig --pplib-cmd "get fanspeed 0"

To overclock and/or underclock it's easier to use a GUI, like ATi Overclocking Utility, which is very simple and requires qt to work. It might be out of date/old, but you can get it here.

Another, more complex utility to perform such operations is AMDOverdriveCtrl. Its homepage is here and you can build an Arch package from AUR or from Vi0L0's unofficial repositories.

Double Screen (Dual Head / Dual Screen / Xinerama)

Introduction

Warning: you should know that there isn't one specific solution because each setup differs and needs its own configuration. That's why you will have to adapt the steps below to your own needs. It is possible that you have to try more than once. Therefore, you should save your working /etc/X11/xorg.conf before you start modifying and you must be able to recover from a command-line environment.

In this chapter, we will describe the installation of two different-sized screens on only one graphics card with two different output ports (DVI + HDMI) using a "BIG Desktop" configuration.

The Xinerama solution has some inconveniences, especially because it is not compatible with XrandR. For that very reason, you should not use this solution, because XrandR is a must for our later configuration.

The Dual Head solution would allow you to have 2 different sessions (one for each screen). It could be what you want, but you will not be able to move windows from one screen to another. If you have only one screen, you will have to define the mouse inside your Xorg session for each of the two sessions inside the Server Layout section.

ATI Catalyst Control Center

The GUI tool shipped by ATI is very useful and we will try to use it as much as we can. To launch it, open a terminal and use the following command:

$ {kdesu/gksu} amdcccle

Warning: Do not use sudo directly with a GUI. Sudo gives you admin rights with user account information. Instead, use gksu (GNOME) or kdesu (KDE).

Installation

Before we start, make sure that your hardware is plugged in correctly, that power is on and that you know your hardware characteristics (screen dimensions, sizes, refreshment rates, etc.) Normally, both screens are recognized during boot time but not necessarily identified properly, especially if you are not using any Xorg base configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) but relying on the hot-plugging feature.

The first step is to make sure that you screens will be recognized by your DE and by X. For this, you need to generate a basic Xorg configuration file for your two screens:

# aticonfig --initial --desktop-setup=horizontal --overlay-on=1

or

# aticonfig --initial=dual-head --screen-layout=left

Note: overlay is important because it allows you to have 1 pixel (or more) shared between the 2 screens.

Tip: For the other possible and available options, do not hesitate to type aticonfig --help inside a terminal to display all available command lines.

Now you should have a basic Xorg configuration file that you can edit to add your screen resolutions. It is important to use the precise resolution, especially if you have screens of different sizes. These resolutions have to be added in the "Screen" section:

From now on, instead of editing the xorg.conf file manually, let us use the ATI GUI tool. Restart X to be sure that your two screens are properly supported and that the resolutions are properly recognized (Screens must be independent, not mirrored).

Configuration

Now you will only have to launch the ATI control center with root privileges, go to the display menu and choose how you would like to set your configuration (small arrow of the drop down menu). A last restart of X and you should be done!

Before you restart X, do not hesitate to verify your new xorg.conf file. At this stage, inside the "Display" sub-section of the "Screen" section, you should see a "Virtual" command line, of which the resolution should be the sum of both screens. The "Server Layout" section says all the rest.

Uninstallation

If for any reason this driver is not working for you or if you somply want to try out the open source driver, remove the catalyst and catalyst-utils packages. Also you should remove catalyst-generatorAUR, catalyst-hookAUR and lib32-catalyst-utilsAUR packages if they have been installed on your system.

Warning: You may need to use pacman -Rdd to remove catalyst-utilsAUR (and/or lib32-catalyst-utilsAUR) because that package contains gl related files and many of your installed packages depend on them. These dependencies will be satisfied again when you install xf86-video-ati.

Warning: You may need to remove /etc/profile.d/ati-flgrx.sh and /etc/profile.d/lib32-catalyst (if it exists on your system), otherwise r600_dri.so will fail to load and you would not have 3D support.

Note: You should remove unofficial repositories from your /etc/pacman.conf and run pacman -Syu, because those repositories include out-dated Xorg packages to allow use of catalyst and the xf86-video-ati package needs up-to-date Xorg packages from the Official repositories.

Also follow these steps:

If you have the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-radeon.conf file remove it or comment the line blacklist radeon in that file.

If you have a file in /etc/modules-load.d to load the fglrx module on boot, remove it or comment the line containing fglrx.

Make sure to remove or backup /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

If you have installed the catalyst-hookAUR package, make sure to disable the systemd service.

If you have installed the catalyst-generatorAUR package, make sure to remove "fglrx" from the "MODULES" array of /etc/rc.conf in case if post-removal script of the package don't work.

If you used the "nomodeset" option in your configuration file in kernel parameters line and plan to use KMS, remove it.

Reboot before installing another driver.

Troubleshooting

If you can still boot to command-line, then the problem probably lies in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

You can parse the whole /var/log/Xorg.0.log or, for clues:

$ grep '(EE)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log
$ grep '(WW)' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

If you are still confused about what is going on, search the forums first. Then post a message in the thread specific to ATI/AMD. Provide the information from xorg.conf and both commands mentioned above.

3D Wine applications freeze

If you use a 3D Wine application and it hangs, you have to disable TLS. To do this, either use aticonfig or edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf. To use aticonfig:

# aticonfig --tls=off

Or, to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf; first open the file in an editor as root and then add Option "UseFastTLS" "off" to the Device section of this file.

After applying either of the solutions, restart X for it to take effect.

Problems with video colours

You may still use vaapi:gl to avoid video flickering, but without video acceleration:

KWin and composite

You may use XRender if the rendering with OpenGL is slow. However, XRender might also be slower than OpenGL depending on your card.
XRender also solves artefact issues in some cases, for instance when resizing Konsole.

If you are using the legacy driver (catalyst-hd234k) and get a black screen, try downgrading xorg-server to 1.11 by using the #xorg111 repository.

Faulty ACPI hardware calls

It is possible that fglrx doesn't cooperate well with the system's ACPI hardware calls, so it auto-disables itself and there is no screen output.

If so, try to run this:

$ aticonfig --acpi-services=off

KDM disappears after logout

If you are running Catalyst proprietary driver and you get a console (tty1) instead of the expected KDM greeting when you log out, you must instruct KDM to restart the X server after each logout:

$ sudo nano /usr/share/config/kdm/kdmrc

Uncomment the following line under the section titled [X-:*-Core]:

TerminateServer=True

KDM should now appear when you log out of KDE.

Direct Rendering does not work

This problem may occur when using the proprietary Catalyst driver.

Warning: This error would also appear if you have not rebooted your system after the installation or upgrade of catalyst. The system needs to load the fglrx.ko module in order to make the driver work.

If you have problem with direct rendering, run:

$ LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo > /dev/null

at the command prompt. At the very start of the output, it'll usually give you a nice error message saying why you do not have direct rendering.

Common errors and their solutions, are:

libGL error: XF86DRIQueryDirectRenderingCapable returned false

Ensure that you are loading the correct agp modules for your AGP chipset before you load the fglrx kernel module. To determine which agp modules you'll need, run hwdetect --show-agp. Then open your fglrx.conf file in /etc/modules-load.d and add the agp module on a line before the fglrx line.

Something has not been installed correctly. If the paths in the error message are /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri/fglrx_dri.so, then ensure you've logged completely out of your system, then back in. If you're using a graphical login manager (gdm, kdm, xdm), ensure that /etc/profile is sourced every time you log in. This is usually accomplished by adding source /etc/profile into ~/.xsession or ~/.xinitrc, but this may vary between login managers.

If the paths above in your error message are/usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/fglrx_dri.so, then something has not been correctly installed. Try reinstalling the catalyst package.

System Freezes/Hard locks

The radeonfb framebuffer drivers have been known in the past to cause problems of this nature. If your kernel has radeonfb support compiled in, you may want to try a different kernel and see if this helps.

Hardware Conflicts

Radeon cards used in conjunction with some versions of the nForce3 chipset (e.g. nForce 3 250Gb) won't have 3D acceleration. Currently the cause of this issue is unknown, but some sources indicate that it may be possible to get acceleration with this combination of hardware by booting Windows with the drivers from nVIDIA and then rebooting the system. This can be verified by issuing in a root console the following command:

Some sources indicate that in some situations, downgrading the motherboard BIOS may help, but this cannot be verified in all cases. Also, a bad BIOS downgrade can render your hardware useless, so beware.

Adding the nopat kernel option to your kernel options in your bootloader and rebooting fixed the problem at least for me. To see how to do this for different bootloaders, see #Disable kernel mode setting.

"aticonfig: No supported adapters detected"

If when running

# aticonfig --initial

you get:

aticonfig: No supported adaptaters detected

But you do have an AMD GPU (or APU), it may still be possible to get Catalyst working by manually setting the device in your your etc/X11/xorg.conf file or by copying an older working /etc/ati/control file (preferred - this also fixes the watermark issue).

To get an older control file, download a previous version of fglrx from AMD and run it with "--extract driver" parameter. You'll find the control file in driver/common/etc/ati/control. Copy the extracted file over the system file and restart Xorg. You can try different versions of the file.

To set your model in xorg.conf,edit the device section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to:

Then reboot your system. In /etc/X11/xorg.conf check that xinerama is disabled, if it's not disable it and reboot your system.

Next run amdcccle and pick up amdcccle->display manager->multi-display->multidisplay desktop with display(s) 2.

Reboot again and set up your display layout whatever you desire.

Disabling VariBright Feature

As root type command:

aticonfig --set-pcs-u32=MCIL,PP_UserVariBrightEnable,0

Hybrid/PowerXpress: turning off discrete GPU

When you are using catalyst-total-pxp or catalyst-utils-pxp and you are switching to integrated GPU you may notice that discrete GPU is still working, consuming power and making your system's temperature higher.

Sometimes ie. when your integrated GPU is intel's one you can use vgaswitcheroo to turn the discrete GPU off.
Sometimes unfortunatelly, it's not working.

Then you may check out acpi_call. MrDeepPurple has prepared the script which he's using to perform 'turn off' task, he's calling script via systemd service while booting and resuming his system.
Here's his script: